


In the Absence of Light

by littlevictories



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, Fix-It, Found Family, Multi, Post-Dragon Age II, unreliable narrator varric tethras
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:54:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23557159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlevictories/pseuds/littlevictories
Summary: When Hawke is presumed dead trying to save the world, there is little her friends can do except follow her as they always have and try to get her back. All the world, from Kirkwall to Skyhold is in ruin, but between them there might be enough to help Thedas back from the chasm's edge.A self indulgent fix-it for those who love DA2 best.
Relationships: Anders/Fenris (Dragon Age), Carver Hawke/Merrill, Female Hawke/Isabela, Female Inquisitor/Josephine Montilyet
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	In the Absence of Light

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I am bitter about DA2’s cast not being more prominent in Inquisition, plus I needed some fix-it with a side of shipper trash. So, this happened.

_The new bar in Skyhold wasn’t as terrible as the Hanged man, the ale flowed better, the company more jovial, and the walls far cleaner, but it was not home._

_That was enough to make them both homesick, Marian was sure, but with Varric it was hard to tell what was the truth, even for her. She leaned across the table and put her hand over his._

_“It’s good of you to have called me.” She said, and Varric rolled his eyes, but turned his to hold on to hers._

_“You’re just saying that because you enjoy watching everyone scramble to figure out if they are supposed to honor or arrest you.”_

_“I mean it.”_

_Marian sighed and let go to take her drink._

_“Whatever else, I am glad to be able to help.”_

_“And as always I get to follow you in to trouble.” Varric said, raising his own in something of a salute._

_She grinned over the edge of her cup, blue eyes lamp lit and mischievous._

_“Always happy to have you along.”_

-

Varric would remember that moment, and hold on to it. He had to. There was nothing else to do but hold on to that and every other moment he’d ever had with his dearest friend. Over the years he had thought he had come to terms with the fact that he would likely tell the tale of the Champion all the way to her dying breath.

He had just hoped it would take a while longer to arrive.

He started his letters over and over again, trying to figure out how to even begin. He’d stood staring into the flames at his favorite of the fireplaces and let melancholy take him until the Herald herself decided he’d been let be long enough. The Herald had held onto him, her own eyes wet when he first let grief take him for more than a moment and wring him out, but now that the initial moment was over, he almost wished he had her there still to help him ignore his duty.

Daisy, I want you to sit down for this-

Isabela, you should be the first to-

Junior, I should be the one to tell you-

Captain, I need you to know there was nothing you could have done-

Fenris, I’m not going to use fancy words for you I know you’d hate them if you could even read them-

Blondie, I know what I said but you still need to hear this from me

Your royal assness-

Lyrenne, I need you to go to Orana and read her the following letter, she deserves to know-

Varric tried over and over again to start the letters and every single one seemed useless and too small for the woman Hawke had been. He couldn’t make the words come to express how empty the world felt in her wake, how much he had been ready to hate everyone who’d had a hand in it, how the moment the Herald and Stroud had stepped out of the fade without her, he wanted to help the sky tear itself down for all of a moment because it wasn’t right.

But he couldn’t hold on to that kind of anger. He’d never been able to.

Oh, he could hold a grudge with the best of them, but he couldn’t hold hate the way that Fenris or Anders, or even Carver could. Daisy could manage better.

So, he’d managed to forgive Iraina as she’d snarled at the Wardens to leave, half held up by Solas and by her own staff.

He’d almost managed to forgive Marian for letting it happen, too.

He sat back in the dark, light from the candles barely managing to light the table. One by one they were flickering out as the night dragged on, with nothing to show for it except growing shadows.

“The world is darker without her.”

A newly lit candle, one of Josie’s good ones on a silver handle, was set in front of him, near silent.

He started at the interruption, though he really shouldn’t anymore.

“Kid.”

“Did she fall or did she fly.” Cole said and he sat down, crumpled on the bench nearby, his limbs haphazard and loose. “Which is it? Does it even matter if she’s gone?”

“Can’t say I’m in the mood for waxing poetic, right now.”

Varric rubbed his hands over his face, and turned to look at Cole.

He’s gaunt as ever, wide eyed in that way he has that looks like he’s both just a bit scared and trying to take in everything at once, the light plays off his face at angles that make him look more haunted than usual.

“She said ‘Tell Varric I am sorry.’ ”

It struck him painfully, like a dagger twisting, and he was sure it showed in his face, judging by the way Cole shrunk in. He breathes out, and it does little to soothe him. 

Varric tried not to hold her last words against her or to hold them against Cole for being the messenger. He knew Cole wasn’t one for lying, but he didn’t want her apologies.

He wanted his best friend back.

He covered his face again, trying not to sink into the kind of bitterness he could feel bubbling up inside of him.

“I am sorry she is no longer here.” Cole continued.

Varric looked between his fingers, and he could see Cole tugging at stray threads on his shirtsleeves, staring at Varric warily.

Cole was there to help. He always was.

He sighed and picked up his quill again.

“Me too, kid.”

-Isabela, you deserve to hear this from me, and you need to know it first.

-Whatever else has happened since, I’m no fool, I know you loved her as much as any of us and you should find out like one of us.-

-There was nothing you could have done. You know her, elf. Nothing could stop her.-

-It is going to be no comfort that I know how you feel, being the last of a house.-

-She deserved better-

-I keep feeling like one of you would understand what happened better than I do. You know the fade, Daisy, I was just a tourist.-

-She would have wanted you to remain in the house as long as it comforts you to do so. You were family to her.-

By the time that words had managed to get out of him and onto the page, the candle burned low, and Cole was still staring at him. He could have been there the whole time or he could have wandered in and out to his content and honestly, Varric couldn’t have said either way, but he was glad for the company.

“They need to hear it from me.” Cole said, speaking Varric’s mind.

“Yeah, kid. They do.”

That somehow made it easier to fold up everything and begin to make his way to the aerie, the small stack of letters heavy with the weight of the hearts they would break.

Cole followed him all the way there and stayed even as he watched the birds take flight and disappear over the mountains into the skies above.

They watched until long after he should have left and long after the birds were no longer pinpricks among the clouds.

-

In the days that followed, one by one, the letters found their mark.

In Starkhaven, the Lord Vael took his leave of his council for the remainder of the day to spend it in prayer, unwilling to call it mourning as he might have in the many years before.

In Kirkwall, a little home in the depths of the alienage was quiet as Merrill cried, staring at the broken frame of her mirror, wondering for the first time in years how to repair it from it’s shattered state, to see if she could reach into the depths of the fade itself to pull her friend back from the edge of the world.

In the upper city, a woman read the letter she’d been charged with to the small girl left alone with the Champion’s estate, her home and her mabari. Orana’s hands clutched at the giant old Dog’s fur, hiding her face in his neck and trying not to let the loss swallow her up.

In the guardhouse, Donnic tried to calm his wife, halfway to packing and halfway to panic at the idea of a world where Hawke no longer dwelt. In the end there was nothing to do, and no one else to hold Kirkwall together and she could do nothing.

On the Waking sea, Isabela cursed the fact that she wasn’t at her place by Hawke’s side, her cabin cold and empty in Hawke’s wake, bits of their lives along the walls, waiting for Hawke to come back to claim them and now she never would.

At the edges of the Anderfels, in one of the Warden camps, long after dark, Carver stared into the fire, having offered to take first watch for the need of something to do, though it left him alone and unable to do little else but think and recall that he was the last of his house. The last of his name, the last Hawke, and the emptiness of that thought ate at him.

On the borders of Tevinter, Fenris spent his anger in the blood of slavers, and what little comfort it brought did nothing once the sounds of the fighting finally stopped. The taste of words were bitter his mouth as he spoke to those he freed and led them back to places that might treat them kinder. It wasn’t enough, it was never enough, it would never be enough.

At the edge of Sundermount, in the woods along the rolling hills, the fade roared to life, cracking open as with one body, both Justice and Anders lashed out in their mourning, neither able to hold sway over the other and both trapped in consuming, endless grief.

And one who needed no letter at all to know hummed to herself as she watched. Fen'Harel's games would continue, no matter what pieces were left to play, it did not matter what Flemeth did or did not do in the end. But somewhere in the fade, Hawke was still falling, still fighting.

And she could nudge that little bird and see if she could still soar, if she wanted to. 

If she just reached out. Just far enough. 


End file.
